


Tonight (I Wish I Was Your Boy)

by moonix



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Exy (All For The Game), Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Demisexual Neil Josten, Fanfic Writer Neil, M/M, Online Friendship, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, Trans Andrew Minyard, Trans Character, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24790549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonix/pseuds/moonix
Summary: Neil secretly writes fanfic and not-so-secretly pines over his housemate Andrew.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 105
Kudos: 776





	Tonight (I Wish I Was Your Boy)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lolainslackss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolainslackss/gifts).



> This is very soft and very self-indulgent, but y'all can have it, as a treat.
> 
> Thank you lolainslackss for the prompt and capncrystal for the sensitivity read!

Neil hit post and snapped his laptop shut, burying his face in his pillow and pulling the blanket over his head for good measure. It wasn’t the first fic he’d let loose on the archive, but it never got easier, no matter how many times he told himself that he was just a meaningless pseudonym on there that literally no one even knew he had.

He’d stumbled on the archive on one of his endless internet rabbit hole sightseeing trips, late one night with his headphones streaming some ASMR thunderstorm ambience, fingers glued to a long-empty mug of tea. His insomnia was cyclical, receding for a few weeks at a time just to slam back into him full force when he’d just settled into a regular sleep schedule again. Writing was a good way to pass the useless hours, and over time he’d even amassed a small but dedicated following despite the fact that he jumped fandoms about as often as he tried a new take-out place.

A knock at his door startled him out of his sudden panic that he might have accidentally copied only half of the fic into the archive’s editor before posting. Allison stuck her head in, blond braids swinging over her shoulder, a strip of bronze skin visible between her crop top and her sweatpants.

“Neilio! We’re ordering pizza, what do you want, baby boy?”

“You do know that the point of knocking before entering is so that the person inside can decide if they’re ready for company, not so you can barge in two seconds later, right?” Neil grumbled, still half-stuck in his blanket of shame.

“Oh psh,” Allison huffed. “We have no secrets in this house, and I’ve seen everything there is to see. So, pizza?”

“Hawaiian,” Neil muttered. “I’d still prefer if you waited.”

“Fine, fine,” Allison sighed dramatically, inspecting her nails. “Are you going to join us for the movie?”

“Give me five minutes.”

He waited until Allison had closed the door behind her before pulling his laptop out and cracking it open. No comments yet. He drummed his fingers against the keyboard and refreshed the page; it was only a short fic and some of his readers were fast, devouring new ones as soon as the notification e-mail sent.

_Comments: 1_

Neil’s stomach twisted and pulled like taffy. He took a deep breath and clicked on the comment.

_From: selfieofdoriangay_

_Fuck. I hate you. How fucking dare you. That kiss on his hip? Unbelievable. You and your goddamn intimacy kink. I have a social commitment tonight and now all I can think about is This_

The stretchy, nervous feeling in Neil’s insides seemed to carbonate, turning fizzy and giddy and threatening to bubble over. He bit his lip and typed out a quick smiley in response before shutting his laptop again and rolling out of bed.

Dorian had been one of Neil’s first subscribers. Sometimes they had long, late night conversations about deep shit, sometimes they sent each other dumb cat videos or weird memes. He made Neil laugh. He made Neil feel like he could tell him anything. Neil had picked his brain on more than one occasion while writing, shyly at first then more and more comfortably when Dorian calmly gave him pointers instead of teasing him about his inexperience. The fic he had just posted was hardly his first steamy one, but sex was still a complicated matter for Neil. Picking at his messy feelings about it felt good and necessary sometimes, and it was fun to engage with the topic through a medium that was entirely separate from Neil’s physical body and therefore, safe. Other days he wondered if he wasn’t just getting a tangled ball of yarn even more tangled by trying to unpick it. Talking to Dorian…

Well, it helped.

He grabbed his phone on his way out to join the others. The house they shared had a big communal space on the ground floor, packed with comfortable couches, armchairs, beanbags, and even a hammock strung from the ceiling beams. There were the fluffy rugs that Allison had brought, Andrew’s bookshelves stacked two rows deep and meticulously organised, Matt’s entertainment centre, Kevin’s piano and Renee’s yoga mats and potted plants. Dan, who frequently slept over in Matt’s room, usually left a few hoodies and video games lying around, and Seth’s bicycle was more often than not propped up against the wall.

It was chaotic and colourful, and it felt wonderfully like home to Neil.

“Neil, my antisocial kitten!” Allison crowed when he climbed over the back of the already overcrowded sofa and plopped himself down. He dug his toes in under Andrew’s thighs, only to have Andrew pick his legs up by his pyjama pants and drop them in his lap instead. Neil leaned back until he felt Allison catch him and arrange his head against a cushion by her hip, carding her long nails through his hair.

“Hi,” he said, wiggling around to make himself comfortable. Allison pursed her lips and bent down to squint at a curl of his hair.

“I need to trim your split ends again,” she said. “Renee, honey, do you have any of that henna dye left? The one that smells like lavender?”

“The auburn?” Renee hummed. “Yeah, should do. Why, is it time for another Pamper Neil Day?”

“Can’t believe this is my life,” Neil murmured happily. Andrew’s hands were resting on his ankles, heavy and warm, grounding him. He still felt pleasantly giddy and accomplished, and his phone kept buzzing in his pocket with the potential of new comments.

“Someone is popular,” Kevin said, twisting his head where he was sitting on the floor in front of the couch. Neil felt his face flush hot and shoved his hand in his pocket, squeezing around his phone as if that would muffle the sound.

“It’s nothing,” he mumbled. “What movie are we watching?”

Those were the magic words to kick off the customary heated debate between the documentary vs. feature film factions. Some people were firmly on one side—Kevin heading the documentary group, Allison the feature films—and others, like Neil and Andrew, tended to switch according to their mood or the selection on offer.

Tonight, they compromised on watching another episode of Night On Earth, which they’d started last week, back to back with Allison’s choice, Crazy Rich Asians. Neil usually fell asleep sometime after the first half hour, so he didn’t really mind what they watched so long as he got to leech off of everyone’s body heat. Having a belly full of pizza and a slew of brand new comments waiting for him on his phone made it even easier to doze off, only waking briefly when Matt had a weepy moment about some just-born baby turtle left lying on its back in the sand.

It was close to midnight when Renee turned off the TV. Something about the change in light must have roused Neil, though he was too tired, too comfortable to open his eyes just yet.

“I can’t possibly get up,” Allison whined. “He looks so cosy and cute.”

“Just like a baby turtle,” Matt whispered.

“So pure and innocent,” Allison went on to lament. Neil thought of the fic he had posted earlier and wondered what she would say if she knew. It wasn’t the first time he wanted to argue against Allison’s image of him as some naïve little child, and not the first time he swallowed it down. He knew she wasn’t serious about it, that it was just her way of expressing her affection. And usually Neil didn’t mind, even enjoyed the easy camaraderie and the harmless jokes.

“He’s probably dreaming of murdering you all,” Andrew said, and Neil nearly laughed. Andrew was always a wild card. Some days he joined in with the jokes, some days he argued just for the sake of arguing, some days he voiced exactly what was going through Neil’s mind.

It was strangely exhilarating.

“No, he’s dreaming of tiny fluffy baby bunnies,” Allison sniffed. “Duh.”

“Yes,” Andrew said, “and he’s murdering them.”

“I’ll murder you if you don’t stop,” Allison hissed.

“I’d like to see you try,” Andrew snorted.

“Dude,” Matt said, hushed, “remember when she went after Seth with a curling iron?”

“Hm,” Andrew made.

“I do,” Neil said. “It was terrifying.”

“Look what you did!” Allison exclaimed. “You woke him up. You two are the worst. Hello, bunny boy. Did you have fluffy dreams?”

“Exceptionally fluffy,” Neil agreed, pushing himself up. “Positively fleecy.”

“That’s what I thought,” Allison smiled.

“With a tiny bit of murder,” Neil added, avoiding her playful smack by tumbling backwards into Andrew’s lap. “Oh. Hello.”

“Seems I have caught a runaway rabbit,” Andrew said deadpan and slid his arms underneath him. “I’ll do us all a favour and put him to bed.”

He stood up, hoisting Neil along, and Neil clung to his shoulders and laughed wildly as Andrew carried him up the stairs to his room. He was on the second floor, sharing a bathroom with Kevin and Seth, while the girls and Matt were downstairs with another bathroom, the kitchen and the living room. Andrew had his own bedroom under the roof, with a small ensuite that Allison continuously mourned not having laid claim to herself.

Andrew shouldered his way into Neil’s bedroom and dumped him on top of the sheets. Neil wasn’t sure when Andrew had gone from aloof watcher on the outskirts of the group to this odd brand of fond, touchy-feely manhandling, but personally he was all for it.

“Sleep, you silly goose,” Andrew told him. “No more murder now.”

“Night, Andrew,” Neil mumbled.

After the door closed behind him, Neil spent some time wriggling around in his sheets, rubbing his excess restlessness off onto the soft fabric. Then he sat up and pulled his laptop toward him, taking a bracingly deep breath before diving into his comments.

-

“Andrew.”

“Mm.”

“Andrew, I’m bored.”

Andrew sighed. They were stuck indoors, rain lashing at the windows and wind howling around the house. Most of the others had fucked off to cheerier places and had left them to babysit a maudlin Kevin and make sure he didn’t go looking for Allison’s secret stash of vodka. Andrew was watching cooking shows on the floor with his bare feet up on the couch and Neil had migrated down from his armchair where he’d been reading fanfic on his phone to his favourite place in the house: Andrew’s tummy.

It was warm and squidgy and infinitely comfortable. It smelled like Andrew. It made tiny gurgly sounds that only Neil could hear. It had inspired many a scene in Neil’s fics.

Sometimes Neil kind of wished he could pull up Andrew’s shirt and kiss all over his stomach.

“Play a game,” Andrew suggested.

“I don’t have any,” Neil pouted.

Andrew patted the floor for his phone, unlocked it and tossed it to Neil.

“Pick one.”

Neil turned on his side, nuzzling Andrew’s thick sweater, and flicked through the apps. Maybe Animal Crossing—no, they had that on Matt’s Switch, and he preferred watching Andrew play it than playing it himself, anyway. Candy Crush—again, it was more fun to watch Andrew play. He was about to swipe through to the next page when his eyes snagged on a familiar looking app.

It was the archive.

_Andrew had the archive on his phone._ Neil felt like milk being steamed, heat frothing up his neck to his head. The app didn’t come preinstalled, and Andrew never let anyone use his phone other than Neil, which meant he had to have downloaded it himself, on purpose.

Which meant Andrew read fanfic.

His finger hovered over the app for a moment, then he quickly swiped on, flicking through the other apps without paying attention. It didn’t have to mean anything. Maybe Andrew had installed it by accident and was too lazy to delete it. Maybe Andrew had read something once and then decided it wasn’t for him. Maybe he was just curious in a morbidly fascinated way what horrible ways people came up with to mangle his favourite books. Yeah, that sounded more like it.

Most of all, Neil told himself firmly, the chances that Andrew had ever read one of _his_ fics were astronomically slim, and just like it was no one’s business what Neil wrote, it wasn’t Neil’s business what Andrew read.

So there.

He switched the phone off and pushed it back to Andrew, squirming around until Andrew shoved him off his stomach and told him to go for a run on Kevin’s treadmill. Neil sighed and grumbled but pulled himself upright anyway, stopping by Kevin’s room to check if he wanted to join him.

Kevin, Matt and Renee had set up a small workout room in the basement. Renee and Andrew used it for sparring, Allison and Renee sometimes did yoga down there when the living room was too crowded and noisy, Neil used the treadmill when the weather was too bad to go running, and Kevin and Matt had bought some weights and a rowing machine wedged in next to Allison’s massage chair. Most of all, Neil enjoyed watching Andrew work out, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood today, so he instead programmed the treadmill to the highest possible speed setting and lost himself in the exercise until his legs screamed in protest.

It was fine. Andrew having that app on his phone didn’t change anything.

Everything was fine.

-

intrepidaceexplorer: so i found out someone i know irl knows about fanfic

selfieofdoriangay: so?

intrepidaceexplorer: lowkey wanna delete all my stuff now lmao

intrepidaceexplorer: i know it’s silly

selfieofdoriangay: do they know you write fic

intrepidaceexplorer: no, i don’t think so

selfieofdoriangay: don’t be so scared little rabbit

selfieofdoriangay: your dirty little secret is safe

intrepidaceexplorer: >:(

Neil sighed and sunk lower in his mound of pillows. It was nearing midnight, he was supposed to finish an essay that was due in under eight hours, and his head was buzzing painfully from the glass of wine he’d had during board game night earlier. He could hear low, faint music seeping through the floorboards from Andrew’s room upstairs, so he knew he wasn’t the only one awake, but the thought of knocking on Andrew’s door and asking if he wanted company made his chest feel like a half-empty waterbed, its contents sloshing around precariously.

intrepidaceexplorer: i think i like a boy :(

selfieofdoriangay: why the :(

intrepidaceexplorer: because

intrepidaceexplorer: the mortifying ordeal of being known and all that

selfieofdoriangay: does he

selfieofdoriangay: know

intrepidaceexplorer: no

intrepidaceexplorer: god

selfieofdoriangay: you make no sense

intrepidaceexplorer: i just

intrepidaceexplorer: wanna put my face on his tummy

intrepidaceexplorer: like forever

intrepidaceexplorer: is that gay

selfieofdoriangay: very

intrepidaceexplorer: :( :( :(

selfieofdoriangay: why don’t you ask him

intrepidaceexplorer: because dorian

intrepidaceexplorer: because he’s

intrepidaceexplorer: and i want

selfieofdoriangay: use your words

intrepidaceexplorer: because i want things but not normal people things and the last time i tried to tell someone that they laughed and said i was cute and to not worry my pretty little head so much

selfieofdoriangay: yikes

selfieofdoriangay: okay but if he doesn’t respect that he’s not worth your face on his tummy

selfieofdoriangay: so you might as well bite the bullet and tell him

intrepidaceexplorer: wait no i know

intrepidaceexplorer: i’m going to keep pining from a distance

intrepidaceexplorer: and deal with my repressed tummy feelings by writing more fanfic

selfieofdoriangay: excellent plan. there’s no way this is going to backfire at all

Neil stifled a laugh and opened a new document, ignoring his waiting essay.

intrepidaceexplorer: any requests?

selfieofdoriangay: for fic?

intrepidaceexplorer: yuh

selfieofdoriangay: just do your usual thing

intrepidaceexplorer: don’t be shy now ;) i know all your kinks. and anyway we’ve talked about everything from pooping to how best to get rid of pimples on your back, you can’t shock me

selfieofdoriangay: and we are never going to talk about that again

selfieofdoriangay: fine

selfieofdoriangay: tentacles

intrepidaceexplorer: dahskjfhsdjfhf

intrepidaceexplorer: you’re so funny

selfieofdoriangay: no? disappointing

selfieofdoriangay: something about aftercare then

intrepidaceexplorer: mhmmmm that’s sordid dorian

intrepidaceexplorer: sordorian

selfieofdoriangay: clicks unsubscribe

intrepidaceexplorer: no :(

intrepidaceexplorer: dorian come back

intrepidaceexplorer: dorian you’re my only fan don’t leave me in this wasteland

selfieofdoriangay: write me some fic and i might

intrepidaceexplorer: :)

-

Neil wrote him a fic about aftercare the same way he always wrote fic: he plucked at his own muddled fantasies and what he wished his meagre handful of experiences had been like instead of what they were, mixed in some stuff he knew or suspected Dorian liked, and turned it all up a notch from how he imagined the resulting mishmash would turn out in reality. All the while having an incognito tab open in the background so he could look things up if necessary.

For the most part, it worked. It was nice to just slip out of his own body and into someone else’s, to explore what sex might be like in some fictional dream space where he didn’t have to deal with things like bodily fluids, getting naked in front of someone else, or having to explain in fumbling words why he wasn’t turned on by normal sex things.

He didn’t get off on writing smut, either. It was just another way of poking into a character’s mind, prying out all the secret, vulnerable, hidden bits.

Sex was weird, was his point. Finding someone who accepted Neil being weird about it without making him feel awkward, fussy or broken was hard, but the fact that people read and liked his fics made him hopeful that it wasn’t impossible.

intrepidaceexplorer: uh so remember when i said it was only going to be a small thing

selfieofdoriangay: ?

intrepidaceexplorer: i’m at 10k :(

intrepidaceexplorer: and i haven’t even got to the aftercare part yet

selfieofdoriangay: you say that like it’s a bad thing

intrepidaceexplorer: sigh

intrepidaceexplorer: my housemates are having a party and i need some tea but i know it’s a trap

selfieofdoriangay: a trap

intrepidaceexplorer: yeah the minute i go downstairs they won’t let me leave

intrepidaceexplorer: all i wanna do is lie in bed and write fanfic is that so much to ask

selfieofdoriangay: i’m at a party too

selfieofdoriangay: you could pretend i’m there

selfieofdoriangay: we could talk about fanfic and ignore everyone else

intrepidaceexplorer: that’s the gayest thing you’ve ever said to me

intrepidaceexplorer: would you make me tea too

selfieofdoriangay: maybe

intrepidaceexplorer: gayyyy

Neil spent a few more minutes dicking around on the internet, wrote two more sentences and erased one, then he shut his laptop, ran a hand through his messy hair and went downstairs.

The party had dwindled down to mostly his housemates. Half of them were clustered in the living room, loud music filling the room like a hot air balloon, and the rest had migrated to the kitchen with glasses of wine, having some sort of deep conversation about how fucked up childhood was. Neil tried to wriggle through the gaps as unobtrusively as possible, but the kettle beeped loudly as he turned it on and Allison immediately stuck her arm out mid-sentence and reeled him in against her side.

“Maybe parenthood as a two-person concept is just inherently toxic and flawed,” she was saying, swishing her wine around in the damp yellow light from the pink plastic chandelier monstrosity she’d hung above the kitchen table. “I’m talking nuclear families as a hot-spot for abuse, patriarchal gender roles, and oppressive heteronormative stereotyping. Maybe we should all live in big communes and just let children run wild as they’re meant to. I mean, who profits from smaller and smaller households? Capitalism and the patriarchy, is who.”

Neil managed to squirm loose when the kettle beeped again and quickly made himself a cup of tea, but he was caught once more on his way out, this time by Matt, who was trying to argue some kind of point but too drunk to articulate himself well. Andrew was propped against a wall with a handle of mead, though he was watching the perspiration on the bottle more than he seemed to be listening to the conversation. Dan had her legs in Renee’s lap and some girl Neil only knew vaguely was talking at length about intersectional feminism. It was noisy and chaotic, and the words grew fuzzy and fox-eared in Neil’s mind, a book where every page was marked.

“Andrew, what do you think?” Renee asked, her clear bright voice cutting through the scrunch of paper and noise. Andrew looked up from where he was slowly but steadily scratching the label off his bottle with a fingernail and recited, in a monotone voice:

“ _Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun_.”

The kitchen was silent for a moment, a perfect bubble of air floating in the rush of the music next door.

“Kurt Vonnegut,” Renee said approvingly. “Isn’t it?”

“Hm,” Andrew made, and went back to picking the label off his bottle.

The conversation swirled up again like settled sand at the bottom of a lake. Neil sipped at his tea and tried to focus on details he could use in his writing later: the cloudy imprint of Allison’s lipstick on her wine glass, the way the late hour flickered and shone like candle flames in people’s eyes, the strange little thrill of intimacy Neil felt at seeing Andrew’s bitten, ragged nails displayed like trophies, like another bad night survived.

“…is what I like about Neil, no, really, I mean he’s just like, he refuses to be defined by a label, and I think that’s so brave?” Allison’s voice slowly filtered through to him, like sweet cream dripping through a muslin cloth.

“Aw, look at him,” Matt crooned, patting his head. “He’s doing the Pikachu face.”

“I am not,” Neil muttered, cheeks feeling hot. It was warm in the kitchen even though someone had cracked a window open, letting in the steady hiss of the rain; the haze of too many people thick and cloying like perfumed steam.

Allison squinted at him over the rim of her wine glass, twirling a cherry red nail through the air.

“How do you even know what that means?” she demanded.

Neil rolled his eyes.

“I know what a meme is, Allison. Just because I was home-schooled doesn’t mean I’m illiterate.”

Allison gasped dramatically, then dribbled herself down Renee’s side like something liquid. Neil caught Andrew looking at him—they were still waiting to find out if anything was going to happen between the two, but so far neither of them had officially made a move.

“Do you hear that, Renee? My baby is all grown up,” Allison moaned.

“Oh, I know,” Dan grinned, sitting up. “Let’s play Meme Charades. See how many of them Neil recognises.”

“I’ve been on the internet longer than Matt’s had a Facebook account,” Neil said. “He still types with his index fingers. I don’t see y’all getting on his dick about it.”

He felt frustrated and irritated and uncomfortable, like he’d mixed too many different drinks and now they were all whirling around in his stomach, making him sick.

“Oh really? What platform,” Allison demanded, still leaning against Renee’s side.

Neil tried to shrug it off.

“Various. Nothing in particular.”

“You’re not on Facebook,” Allison said immediately, taking out her phone and flipping through it. “Not on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, LinkedIn…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Neil muttered, wishing he hadn’t said anything.

“It’s probably something weird,” Andrew spoke up. It was casual, like he’d only just tuned back into the conversation, but there was something curious in his gaze that made Neil’s stomach shiver and twist.

“No,” Neil lied.

“Please tell me you’re not on Reddit dragging people,” Dan said, looking like she was very much hoping that.

“I can’t believe you had a social media account all this time and didn’t add me,” Allison complained. “I thought we were friends, Neil!”

“Hey, Neil, have you seen this video,” Matt said, tilting his phone to show Neil a video of a sports commentator narrating two dogs playing with sticks.

“That’s cute,” Neil said. “There’s one with a turtle doing an obstacle course, let me see if I can find it…”

“Oh no,” Matt whispered, crestfallen, “I just remembered that baby turtle.”

“Don’t think you can get out of this that easily,” Allison grumbled, pointing her manicured finger at Neil. “I will find out what it is if it’s the last thing I do.”

Neil ignored her, scrolling through YouTube in search of the turtle video. When he found it, he shoved Matt’s phone back into his hands and stood up, snatching up his tea. His stomach felt creased up and wrung out; he had definitely reached his limit for socialising tonight.

As he slipped out of the kitchen and back towards the stairs, someone came after him and snagged his sleeve. Neil’s neck flushed hot as he turned around and saw Andrew quietly motion for him to follow him upstairs. They passed the second floor, climbing up to Andrew’s room instead, and Neil had to bite his lip to contain his excitement. Andrew’s room was off-limits to everyone, even his twin brother. It was rare that Andrew invited anyone up here, and so far Neil had only been inside twice—once when Andrew had moved and once when he’d borrowed Andrew’s camera and Andrew had shown him how it worked.

It was a large room, though the slanted ceilings made it look narrower than it was. Like the last time, Neil was surprised at the clutter—Andrew’s bookshelves downstairs were so meticulous, and he always seemed so frugal and minimalist with everything, including his words. Every spare inch of his room, however, was covered in something: photographs and posters, camera equipment, clothes, more books and comic books, pillows and cushions, postcards, notebooks and other paraphernalia. Neil could have spent an hour simply exploring everything, but he sat neatly on a plush rug with his hands contained in his lap and tried not to look like he was bursting with curiosity.

Andrew put some music on and slipped his arms out of his sleeves, quickly and efficiently taking his binder off underneath his hoodie before sliding them back in. Neil squeezed his hands in his lap and fixed his eyes on the lucky cat figurine on the shelf beside him. It was black with gold and red details, the paint chipped in places. Andrew sat on the floor, leaning against the bookcase, and snapped his fingers against the cat’s arm, making it wave wildly back and forth.

When he looked at Neil, his eyes were a sharp, herbal green in the light, the flecks of brown in his irises almost completely swallowed by the late hour.

“Hey,” Neil said.

“Hey,” Andrew mimicked.

They were quiet, listening to the faint crackle and pop of the rain against the windows. Neil took a small sip of air and cleared his throat.

“The other day, when you gave me your phone,” he said. His palms grew sweaty and he squeezed them harder, trying to generate enough courage to spit the words out.

“Yes?” Andrew said.

He’d left his binder draped over the back of a chair. It was just a simple black scrap of fabric; from where Neil sat, it could have been anything from a pair of shorts to a tank top. Still. The fact that Andrew had taken it off and left it out in the open like this, with Neil right there…

It was trust. Trust that Neil wanted to return.

He cleared his throat again.

“There was this app. For, um. Reading.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow and waited.

“For reading fanfiction?” Neil finally said, breathy and awkward, mouth fluttering into an aborted half-smile.

“Yes,” Andrew said. Like he wasn’t shining a light on the parts of Neil that were buried, protected, safe. Warm and tucked away. Something done under the covers at night, alone.

Neil didn’t know how to not hide pieces of himself. How to give himself to someone, whole.

“Neil,” Andrew said, scooting a little closer until the tips of their knees touched. Slowly, he reached out and tapped the tight knot of Neil’s hands.

“I’m fine,” Neil whispered. He unclasped his hands, flexing his fingers. They were red where he’d laced them together too tightly. Andrew waited until he was done, then he reached out and curled his index finger around Neil’s. Slightly mesmerised by the movement, Neil stared down at their entwined fingers, then lifted his thumb and stroked it along Andrew’s. Andrew, in turn, hooked his middle finger around Neil’s, until both of their hands were braided together.

Neil risked a glance up at Andrew’s face and felt a shivery thrill run through him when he saw that Andrew was already watching him.

“You know,” he stuttered, swallowed. “I really like you.”

He felt like his whole body was encased in a warm Styrofoam take-away container. The minute Andrew lifted the lid, he would turn entirely to steam and dissipate.

“That’s gay,” Andrew murmured, scooting even closer, until the tips of their noses were brushing.

“Guys can really like other guys like, platonically,” Neil whispered.

“Is it,” Andrew replied. “Platonic.”

“No,” Neil admitted. “I kind of really want to kiss you, so I guess not.”

Andrew dropped his gaze, contemplating Neil’s mouth. Then he flicked his eyes up again for the barest flicker of a second as if to make sure he was still there, before finally leaning in and pressing his lips to Neil’s.

It felt like a thousand butterflies were all closing their wings and huddling together in Neil’s belly, crawling over each other and squeezing into every crevice. His wrists sang with an urgent, buzzing sensation as Andrew softly cradled the back of Neil’s head in one hand and adjusted his angle. He tasted faintly like honey, and there was something shivery about his breath that made Neil ache with sweetness.

“How was that,” Andrew murmured, low and dazed as he pulled away. Neil reached out and curled his fist into the scrunch of Andrew’s hood that had twisted sideways over his shoulder, holding him in place.

“Very gay,” Neil said, breathless. “Do it again?”

-

“Can I stay here tonight?” Neil asked some indeterminable amount of time later, mumbly and slurred and utterly stupid, his lips sore and raw from kissing. Andrew hummed something that sounded like “yes” and “come here,” and they lost themselves to each other again.

Neil didn’t think he was going to sleep at all. He felt like a fizzy drink, ready to pop as soon as someone twisted the cap off.

Eventually they took a break for air and Andrew took one look at him, flicked his forehead and rolled his eyes.

“Stop that.”

“Stop what.”

“That,” Andrew said, cupping his hand over Neil’s eyes, then his other over Neil’s mouth. “And that.”

“Hmm,” Neil said. “No.”

The hands lifted and Andrew stood up, stretching his legs. Neil’s left foot had fallen asleep at some point and was starting to come alive again with almost painful insistence. He flopped back onto the floor and watched as Andrew stepped over him and went to the bathroom. As soon as the door had closed behind him, he rolled on his side, bunched himself up as small as physically possible and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, rubbing his feet against the rug until they buzzed with static.

He slipped his phone out of his pocket to send a quick message to Dorian:

intrepidaceexplorer: oh my god

There was a muffled chime almost immediately and he jumped, checking for Dorian’s reply, though nothing had come through yet. His phone wasn’t even unmuted, so it must have come from Andrew’s.

He dropped his phone on his face with a sigh, rolling over again to face Andrew’s bookshelf. The bottom row held some Oscar Wilde limited editions and his gaze snagged on The Picture Of Dorian Gray. Tracing the gold lettering on the spine, Neil sat up. Something niggled at the base of his skull, but before he could chase it down, the bathroom door opened.

“I don’t have a spare toothbrush,” Andrew said.

“Huh?”

“You wanted to stay here.”

“Oh,” Neil said, pushing his hands into the soft rug. “Yes. I can. Go downstairs and come back?”

“Hmm,” Andrew said, throwing himself down on his bed. He picked up his phone and Neil idly tracked the movement, feeling somehow pinned to the spot. He spread his fingers and closed them again on the soft tufts, swirling them around and tracing the different textures in the rug.

His own phone vibrated gently against his wrist. Neil felt like he’d swallowed it, like it was buzzing around deep inside his stomach.

He picked it up.

selfieofdoriangay: what now

intrepidaceexplorer: oh my god

He typed it with shaking fingers and waited for the answering chime of Andrew’s phone, then stood up. He was pretty sure he said something about going to the bathroom downstairs, but for all he knew it might have just been the word, “Teeth,” before booking it out of the room, down the stairs, and into the bathroom, locking the door behind him and dropping on his ass on the floor.

Andrew was Dorian.

He had to be.

Andrew was Dorian, which meant…

He’d told _Andrew_ how much he wanted to kiss his tummy. He’d told Andrew about that time he’d sneezed so hard he’d farted really loudly during an exam. He’d asked Andrew all those embarrassing questions. Andrew had read all of his fics, including the smutty ones. Andrew was Dorian, and Dorian was Andrew, and…

But that also meant that Andrew had been the one to answer those questions. Andrew had been the one to help him through all of his sexuality-related crises. Andrew had told him some pretty personal stuff in return, including the time he’d had a sore throat from sucking dick for too long. And Andrew had read _and liked_ all of his fics.

Or maybe Neil was just going crazy.

Maybe he saw connections that were simply coincidences. Maybe he was just being paranoid, or it was wishful thinking, or something.

But he had to know.

He unlocked his phone and tried to keep his fingers still enough to type out his next message.

intrepidaceexplorer: okay um so hypothetically

intrepidaceexplorer: if i had just

intrepidaceexplorer: kissed the guy i like and then realised that this guy is the same guy i’ve been talking to online for months um

intrepidaceexplorer: hypothetically

intrepidaceexplorer: what do you think i should do

He squeezed his phone with both hands, waiting for Dorian’s answer. For several long minutes—or maybe hours, days—nothing came through. Then there was a tentative knock on the door, startling Neil nearly out of his skin.

“Neil?” Andrew called.

For a small, insignificant moment, Neil felt like cramming himself under the cupboard in the corner and never coming out. Then he shook himself off, got to his feet, and cracked the door open.

“Yes?”

Andrew looked at him. He was wearing scuffed old sweatpants and rainbow socks, his hoodie with the stripes on the sleeves. The drawstrings were uneven. His hair was a mess, exacerbated by Neil’s hands, and his mouth was a smear of bright pink in the dim light of the staircase behind him.

“Hi,” Neil whispered.

Andrew reached out and hooked a finger into his collar, wiping his thumb over the fabric in a repetitive pattern, his eyes fixed on a point just under Neil’s cheekbone.

“Hey, Ace,” he muttered, nervously casual, or casually nervous. Neil, who couldn’t do anything by halves, let himself pitch forward until his face was tucked into the crook of Andrew’s neck, though he kept the rest of his body curved carefully away in case it was unwanted right then.

“Do you still want,” he whispered, drinking in Andrew’s sweet scent in case it was the last time he was allowed. _Me_ , he wanted to say, _all of it_ , but he couldn’t.

“Yes,” Andrew murmured, “dumbass.”

Neil slumped in relief, and Andrew was there to catch and gather him, pushing him against the safe barrier of his body.

“So did you teeth yet,” Andrew asked, sounding amused.

“No,” Neil sniffed. “I was too busy having a nervous breakdown.”

Andrew poked him until he stepped back, then kept poking him into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

“Bring a pillow,” he squeezed through the gap at the last moment. Neil listened to the sound of his feet disappearing back up the stairs and took several deep, bracing breaths before stepping in front of the mirror.

He looked a wreck.

He looked like someone had taken him apart, polished all the individual parts, and put him back together in a different order, but better. He scrubbed a hand through the mess of his hair and hid his face in his palms, grinning like an idiot.

Yeah, he definitely wasn’t going to sleep tonight.

-

“I’m not a pizza dough,” Andrew mumbled, rolling his shoulder against Neil’s restless hands. “Stop kneading me.”

“Mm, are you sure? You smell so yeasty yummy.”

“Ew gross.”

Neil glanced at the clock on Andrew’s bedside table and patted down the fabric tufts he’d kneaded into Andrew’s green hoodie. Andrew was starfished out on top of him, dozing lightly, and Neil’s leg was buzzing with pins and needles, but he didn’t dare move.

“Nothing about you is gross,” he said firmly, pressing a sloppy kiss into Andrew’s wild hair.

“All bodies are gross,” Andrew replied. “It’s in their nature.”

“Except yours,” Neil hummed, squeezing his arms around Andrew’s middle and nuzzling him. “Remember when you got food poisoning from those shrimp and texted me from the bathroom and I told you to describe it for me so I could google if you had cancer or not?”

“I should have kicked you out when I had the chance,” Andrew sighed. “You still owe me fanfic.”

“I can hardly write while you’re lying on top of me.”

“Not with that attitude you can’t.”

Neil experimentally wiggled his toes. Sunshine dribbled in through the windows and Neil felt heavy, drowsy and thoroughly poached in Andrew’s presence, like he’d simmered in a slow cooker overnight. They’d talked a bit before bed, about Neil’s hesitancy to mix his online with his offline life, about Andrew’s boundaries and Neil’s insecurities and both of their expectations. Neil squirmed a little thinking about it, but it had been an important conversation and they’d needed to have it.

“In retrospect,” he mused, wriggling some more until Andrew pinned his foot down with his leg, “I probably should have known you were Dorian.”

“Yes,” Andrew grumbled.

“I mean, in my defence, you were at Nicky’s when you had the food poisoning, so I didn’t know.”

“Neil.”

“Okay, so, wait,” Neil said, frowning at a particularly noticeable whorl in the ceiling. “How long have _you_ known that it was me you were talking to?”

Andrew mumbled something unintelligible into his chest and Neil poked his sides until he twitched and swatted his hand away.

“Andrew Joseph Minyard,” he said, knowing Andrew got a kick out of it when he used his whole name like that. “Come on, ‘fess up.”

Andrew lifted his head, glaring blearily at him with his hair plastered to one side of his head, and sighed heavily.

“I knew,” he said, long-suffering. “All along.”

Neil gaped a little.

“You. All along? How?”

Andrew rubbed at his hair, only succeeding in making it stick up even worse.

“One time. You had your laptop open. I saw your.” He wriggled his fingers.

“Oh fuck,” Neil said, dropping his head back into the pillow. “When?”

“First and only time you got drunk with Allison,” Andrew said, nuzzling him slowly. “Before Kevin got sober. When that girl dumped her.”

“I remember,” Neil choked out. Allison had been so broken up about it that he’d caved, just the one time, and polished off a bottle of tequila with her. She’d had most of it but he’d still never been so sick in his life, and most of the night was a blur of Allison weeping and ranting in turns and Neil trying his best to cheer her up with dumb jokes. The others had all been out and Renee had still been studying abroad back then, but Andrew had come home sometime after midnight and had cleaned them both off the kitchen floor.

Neil was usually very careful about keeping his laptop closed and his phone locked around people. He must have forgotten that night, distracted by Allison’s sudden outburst of misery and the alcohol he wasn’t used to.

He put his hands over his face and groaned.

“You put me to bed,” he mumbled, feeling heavy with embarrassment. “You do that a lot.”

“You fall asleep everyfuckingwhere,” Andrew muttered. “It’s messy.”

“ _You’re_ messy,” Neil grumbled back. “I can’t believe you knew all this time and you didn’t tell me.”

“I was,” Andrew admitted, “curious. About you writing fic. And then I read it. And. I knew you didn’t want anyone to know.”

Neil felt a wave of unexpected warmth soak through him and he fisted his hands in Andrew’s hoodie again, squeezing the fabric.

“Yeah,” he said.

“I did not expect to _like_ them,” Andrew said, sounding almost irritated.

“Hmm, but you did,” Neil said smugly. Andrew huffed.

“You were… easier. To talk to. Online.”

“Yeah,” Neil said again, ignoring the way his chest seized up briefly. “You, too.”

They were both silent for a moment. Then: “Did you have a crush on me?” Neil asked, delighted.

“ _No_. Absolutely not. I don’t have crushes.”

“Except you totally did,” Neil gloated.

“You’re the one who told me you ‘liked a boy’ and then had a nervous breakdown about it,” Andrew muttered.

“We are both clowns,” Neil agreed. “But it worked out for us, didn’t it?”

“I guess.”

“Hey, how about we celebrate with some breakfast? I’ll make you pancakes.”

“Mean,” Andrew grumbled, “underhanded, vile. Unfair.”

“Yes, that’s me,” Neil hummed, once more smoothing over the fabric of Andrew’s hoodie until he realised he was basically petting him and stopped. “Er, you know. I also can’t make you pancakes unless you get up.”

“Fine,” Andrew sighed, finally rolling off him. “Be like that.”

“Like what, a conscientious boyfriend?” Neil grinned. Andrew swiftly pulled Neil’s pillow out from under him and whacked him with it. Neil squawked and tumbled off the bed, seizing his pillow when Andrew lifted it again for another whack and snatching it out of his grip.

“See if I’ll share my pancakes with you now. Ass.”

“Suit yourself. I don’t care.”

“I’ll make chocolate chip ones. With peanut butter.”

Andrew abruptly sat up.

“In that case, I’d better supervise,” he said, prodding Neil with his foot. “Up you get. Those pancakes aren’t gonna make themselves.”

Neil shook his head, bemused, and followed Andrew downstairs. Making pancakes while Andrew stood pressed up against him and kept trying to steal spoonfuls of batter and chocolate chips was somewhat challenging, but he was lavishly compensated with kisses for every loss, so Neil endured it with dignity.

-

“Neeeiiiilll!” Matt whined, making grabby hands at him from the sofa. “I never get to cuddle you anymore. All you ever want to do is cuddle your new boyfriend.”

“It’s Andrew’s fault,” Neil said gravely. “He’s like an octopus. Yesterday he came with me to the bathroom so he could keep hugging me while I peed.”

“Blatant lies,” Andrew said from where he was clamped tight to Neil’s back. They’d frog-marched from the kitchen to the living room, Neil carrying the snacks for their movie night, and Neil was trying to figure out a way to sit down short of face-planting directly onto Matt and being crushed by Andrew in the process.

“See what I’m dealing with?” Neil lamented, handing over their bowl of popcorn, trail mix, pretzels, wasabi peanuts and mini marshmallows all mixed into one abomination and trying to navigate them so Andrew could sit down first and Neil could sit in his lap.

“You poor thing,” Dan grinned, throwing a peanut at them. “Such hardship.”

“No, hardship is that Neil still isn’t letting me add him on social media,” Allison sniffed from the depths of the hammock.

“It’s because all he has is an ancient, horrendously embarrassing MySpace account,” Andrew deadpanned, picking up the peanut and tossing it into the hood of Kevin’s sweatshirt. Kevin was scrolling through his Netflix account with a frown on his face and didn’t even react, so Neil picked a piece of popcorn and threw it over to join the peanut.

“Don’t listen to him,” Neil said. “All he does is spout bullshit and farts.”

Andrew tossed a mini marshmallow and pinched his side and Neil wiggled off him and half onto Matt instead.

“Ah, freedom,” Andrew sighed, stretching until his spine popped loudly. “Finally.”

“Have you been wearing your binder for unholy amounts of time again,” Kevin asked, scowling.

“Literally nobody asked you, assface,” Andrew shot back, tossing another peanut at him. This one pinged off his forehead and Kevin caught it reflexively. When he tried to throw it back at Andrew, Andrew simply opened his mouth and caught it between his teeth.

“I’m just saying,” Kevin muttered. “You shouldn’t wear it for longer than eight to ten hours, ideally less-”

“Hey, Alexa,” Neil said, throwing a pretzel at him. “What’s the recommended time for shutting the fuck up?”

Kevin held his hands up defensively and sank into one of the beanbag chairs.

“So,” he said. “What are we going to watch?”

Neil participated in the ensuing debate solely to egg people on. He didn’t care what they watched as long as he was surrounded by his friends. If he fell asleep, Andrew would carry him to bed and maybe join him there if he was feeling like it. He’d handed in his last essay earlier today and had finally posted the fic he’d written for Dorian—Andrew—just before he’d come downstairs. There would probably be comments waiting for him later. Maybe even one from Andrew, who had taken out his phone and was checking his e-mails. If Neil was lucky, the fic subscription e-mail would have gone out by now, and Andrew would see it in a moment.

He looked away, trying to focus on the opening sequence instead of Andrew’s face. His stomach crinkled with anticipation like candy wrappers and he wriggled around comfortably, stealing a handful of sour gummy worms from Dan’s bowl.

In a way, getting to see Andrew’s reactions to his fics was an even bigger thrill now than when he’d still been just a name on the screen. It was also much, much more terrifying and excruciating—but Neil wouldn’t miss it for the world.

As if on cue, his phone buzzed warmly in his pocket, and Neil smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I have a brand spanking new Twitter now ([MoonixWrites](https://twitter.com/MoonixWrites)) so come hang out if you want. If you enjoyed this fic, leave me some kudos or a comment or shout into the void hoping I will somehow hear. You can also subscribe to me for more ridiculously soft content or check out any of the 80+ existing fics I have previously provided for your amusement. Cheerio xxx


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